i'll stop the world (and melt with you)
by stillifall
Summary: "I think I'm stuck repeating the same day over and over and maybe I'm just losing it, maybe I've been drugged or maybe this is the afterlife or-" Will's laugh interrupts her, the uncertain one that he uses when he feels uncomfortable. She pales. "Are you feeling okay Allie?" he asks. "Or is this some joke, cause you're really not making any sense." or a groundhog day au


originally posted on ao3

lyrics from the song 'Melt with You' by Modern English

* * *

_Dream of better lives the kind which never hates _

_(You should see why) _

_Trapped in the state of imaginary grace _

_(You should know better) _

* * *

Faintly, Allie remembers falling asleep in her prom dress. She doesn't remember ever taking it off, ever waking up in the middle of the night to get the dress, with it's stupid zipper that kept digging into her side, off. When her eyes open much too early (it's half past seven. This is the second day in a row that she's woken up before eight), squinting because the sun is too bright through her half open blinds, she feels this weird sense of deja vu, like she's already done this. This feeling follows her down the stairs to an empty house, to a sink full of dishes that she had done the day before (the blue mug that Gordie drinks late night coffee from, the plate that her mom had made at Pottery Barn), and a collection of prom decorations that Cassandra must've brought home for some weird reason (Allie had had to drag them to the venue the day before, complaining the entire time while Will was off searching for Kelly).

It's 8:30 and she's just started on the dishes when Will slips out of the house with a quiet wave, saying something about going over to Kelly's. He's gone before she can ask about how the rest of his prom night went, and the feeling of deja vu deepens; he'd slipped out while saying the same words ("Morning Allie. I'm going to Kelly's. See you later.") at the exact same time yesterday. _It's just a coincidence._ (Weirdly, she doesn't even remember Will ever returning home the night before.)

It doesn't help that Cassandra wakes up at the same exact time as the day before too (nine o'clock, uncharacticlisty late for her sister. She had thought that yesterday too. Allie's already done the dishes and made a pot of coffee) and offers to make pancakes, just like the day before once more, with no mention of prom, no mention of the amazing event _Kelly_ put on, or all the fun she'd had.

"Blueberry or chocolate chip?" Cassandra asks, filling the kettle with water for tea. Allie doesn't point out that she's already made an entire pot of coffee.

Allie also ignores the question (the answer is obviously blueberry. Cassandra knows that). "How late did you get back from prom?"

Cassandra looks at her funny, eyebrows furrowed but this smile on her face, almost like Allie is making some kind of joke. It's the type of know-it-all smile that people hate Cassandra for. "Prom?" she repeats, letting out a little half laugh. "That's tonight."

Allie's eyes widen and she shakes her head slowly. "No," she says with a sort of certainty. She'd already suffered through prom, through watching Will and Kelly and sitting alone, and feeling replaced. That'd _already happened._ "It was yesterday."

Cassandra full on laughs this time, turning off the stove as the kettle starts to whistle. "Pretty sure it's tonight." She still thinks Allie's making some joke, not a funny one, sure, but a joke nonetheless.

Allie starts to wonder if she's going crazy, if her memories, albeit a little fuzzy in places, aren't real, that she made up an entire day. It'd make sense, her going crazy in this new weird world; there's probably something in the water. If anything, her losing it would almost balance out the strangeness of their situation.

So she takes a shaky breath in and says, "Must've dreamt it," with an odd sort of certainty. That's what makes sense, the idea of the previous day being a dream, because prom, and everything that comes along with it, is equal parts exciting and stressful. She finally gets to wear that dress, that one she spent way too much money on, and maybe dance with Will (if her dream is some sort of prophecy, they'll fast dance to a slow song; that's exciting), and pretend that everything was normal. "Yeah, I must've dreamt it."

(She ignores the deja vu and the dishes in the sink. Prom night was all in her head, and she, without a shadow of a doubt, believes that.)

* * *

The day passes the same way it did in her dream, a back and forth from the venue with decorations, set up and food prep, and getting ready at the house.

It's scary how much like her dream the day was, right down to the words in people's mouths, to Cassandra telling her that the lights weren't right, to Grizz's space puns, and Gwen throwing away a frozen blue cake.

There's a group of girls getting ready in the house, all piled into Cassandra's room (never Allie's) and doing hair and make up. Allie is an afterthought, not entirely included in conversations, not entirely invited to join. (Casandra had once told her, "My friends are your friends." It'd never been entirely true, though. Nothing's entire.)

Just like in her dream, the tension between her and Cassandra remains. Allie wonders if she knows that she'd slept with Harry, if that's why she's so upset. _It'd be betrayal at it's finest_ she reasons with a sick sort of snideness. How Cassandra looked at Kelly, like she was everything that Allie wasn't, still replays in her head, over and over, dream or not. Maybe it wasn't real, but even dreams draw on reality.

She follows the day that was all in her head like it's some sort of step by step guide. It's almost like she's playing a role, in a theater production that Cassandra didn't get the starring role in. In slippers and a robe, she rushes into the bathroom while Cassandra is doing her make-up. She takes pride in the fact that she knows all her lines already, the natural way they slip out. They're her words first and foremost; she goes into autopilot as she talks.

Deja vu is almost fun.

* * *

The zipper on her dress still digs into her side, and it still hurts (maybe even more than the first time, the hazy time that she can almost pretend she only half remembers) when she watches Will dance with Kelly, all slow to a song that's almost fast.

The whiskey is still sharp, and the drink Harry makes her is still bright and sweet.

"You want to dance?" He sounds a little more sure of himself than in her dream, a little less fuzzy around the edges. She still says no (because she has a script to follow; he'd understand), and thanks him for the drink.

She does dance with Will, fast to a slow song. She enjoys the spotlight it casts on them, the smiles and laughs from surrounding pairs. He leaves her just the same as before (does it count as before if it was all in her head?) to go find Kelly. It's always Kelly; she's a little like everything Allie wishes she could be, poised, sweet, with an occasional sharpness that somehow makes her better.

The night ends the same as it did in her dream, with a glass of cranberry juice by her bed (now that she thinks about it, that glass also wasn't there this morning. She might just really be losing it, though; everything is getting kinda blurry).

* * *

The glass of cranberry juice isn't there in the morning, and, though she's positive that she fell asleep in the dress, there's no zipper indentation in her side. It's 7:30 and the sun is too bright through the blinds. Down in the kitchen, the dishes are all there, Goride's blue mug, and that plate her mom made.

She feels a little like screaming.

That feeling deepens when Will slips out the door while she's doing the dishes at 8:30. _"Morning Allie. I'm going to Kelly's. See you later."_

It's when Cassandra pads downstairs, and asks her what type of pancakes Allie would like when she sort of loses it.

"What's it called when you get stuck in the same day?" she asks frantically, staring at Cassandra as she fills the kettle with water for tea. (There's a pot full of coffee right next to her. Allie wonders if this is what her life is going to be, making coffee that no one drinks.)

Cassandra lets out a little laugh. "Like in _Groundhog Day_?" Allie nods. "A time loop I think. Why'd you want to know?"

"Just wondering."

Cassandra starts making the pancake batter, and Allie thinks back to the past two days, the same day repeated. She looks at the sinks piled full of dishes, and Cassandra making tea. It's all the same.

She's _stuck in a time loop._ _Shit._

* * *

Allie knows for a fact that the lights are perfect, yet Cassandra still makes her adjust them over and over, some strange quest for perfection. Grizz's space puns still make her laugh, though; that's comforting.

The day before (can she even call it that if she's living the same day over again?) it was just a deep feeling of deja vu. Now, it feels like reading that same paragraph in a book over and over and not really taking any of it in. The role she played yesterday- herself- was almost fun. It was nice to know what was going to happen next, though simultaneously unsettling. Now it's like a part in a play she never wanted. It's like the world isn't real, like everything's just some simulation and she's stuck in the middle of it. She wonders how quickly she'll go crazy if she's already tired of the day.

* * *

"So… you want to dance?"

She turns to him, her drink pressed to her lips. _I Melt With You_ is playing in the background, and she wonders what she's got to lose. "Sure."

He grins at her and everything feels different.

* * *

"That used to be my sister's room," he tells her when she walks past it. There's a mess of sleeping bags and spare blankets littering the floor now, but the walls are still a pale pink, and there's a dollhouse in the corner.

"How many people are staying here?"

He laughs but there's no humor to it. "Nineteen."

"Fuck."

"Yeah." His hand is in hers. She hadn't even noticed that before, but now he seems to be squeezing it just a little tighter. "The funny thing is that my mom wouldn't even let family stay with us when they were visiting. She'd always force them to stay someplace else." He laughs again. "She'd throw a fit if she saw this place now."

Allie's silent, taking it all in. She absently wishes she could've taken in the Bingham household before all of this. She pictures antique vases and full bookshelves and couches not covered in a layer of blankets.

"Now it's a fucking mess all the time and there's no coffee or food anywhere."

Allie lets out a quick breath through her nose, a half laugh. "There's always coffee at my house. I'll make a pot and no one will drink it. You'll have to come over sometime."

"I might take you up on that Pressman."

It'd be so easy to get used to Harry, to let him tell her a million little stories about before. She wants to let him in so bad that it hurts. She blames the alcohol, that sweet drink he'd given her that made her smile. She blames the feeling of his lips against hers, blames his smile, and his laugh, and his stupid bowtie.

Liking Harry Bingham is just as easy as hating him.

* * *

It's jarring, to fall asleep in one place and to wake up somewhere entirely different. It messes her up, makes her want to change things.

In _Groundhog Day_, he gets out of the loop by doing everything right, by being a good person and doing good things. So, Allie decides to mix things up just a little. At this point, this is going to be her entire world, this stupid town and it's stupid teenage inhabitants, for God knows how long. She hates the fact that she's trying to get used to that.

She wonders what the fuck is so special about this day, what it means in the long run. Why is she stuck in it? What is she missing?

So, at 8:30, she follows Will out the door. She feels a little like a secret agent though she already knows what she's going to find. He meets Kelly outside her house, asks for a suit jacket (Allie's hurt that he didn't come to her. He'd known her dad. If this was the real world, if they were home, her dad would've been the person to loan him the sports coat), and talks to her like she's everything he's ever wanted.

It should probably hurt more than it does, but instead it just stings a little, like salt on an open wound. She'd already been hurt, this is just the after. Allie's already watched them dance twice, already watched him follow Kelly into prom, and already watched him chase after her. She wonders how many more times she'll have to watch to finally get over him (probably not that many).

* * *

At home, Cassandra isn't even up yet. Her day goes the same.

At prom, when Harry asks her to dance (with this new look in his eyes, this less glassy look. He seems like he's a little more present) she says no, repeats that phrase about how it's _better in the long run if they don't_ from the first and second days. Honestly, though, she doesn't think she has it in her to fall asleep next to him and wake up alone. It'll drive her crazy, getting to know someone who's not stuck like her. It'll be uneven, she'll know all of this stuff, little things that you find out over time, and they'll just start over, day after day. She wishes she could get to know him. She wishes she could dance with him, follow him home and fall asleep beside him, her prom dress and it's stupid zipper discarded somewhere along the way. She wishes this all wasn't so fucking tiring.

(When she leaves, not sparing him a sideways glance as she returns to her table, the empty one off to the side, she doesn't see the look on his face, the heartbreak. For a second, just a second, he thought he'd found someone just as stuck as him.)

* * *

She stays after to help Cassandra clean up. She doesn't want to go home to an empty house, to draw the blinds shut and fall asleep hoping to wake up in a new day. And, maybe most of all, she misses her sister, the one who'd read her stories at night and talk to her about whatever.

"You don't have to stay, Allie," Cassandra says with a tired smile. She's sweeping plastic cups and paper plates into a trash bag. Allie's right next to her.

"I don't mind."

"You see Mr. UTI at prom?" she jokes. It's tight, though, and if Allie hadn't already lived through their earlier conversation four times she might've been a little more hurt.

"Maybe."

Cassandra stays silent after that, only laughing a little when she sees the Bar Mitzvah slideshow that was set up. "You don't mind me playing this, do you?"

"Course not." Gwen had told her about how she'd babysat the kid. It's weird to think about how they had lives before all of this that they probably would never get back.

Outside, there's a dog, a border collie maybe (Allie had never been all that into dogs as a kid. She was more of a horse girl, took lessons and everything), that emerges from the bushes. There's a rustle somewhere else, one that makes Allie jump and Cassandra laugh.

And then there's Dewey, the guy who she'd had math with in 8th grade, pointing a gun right at both of them. He has this sick look on his face, and Allie feels a little like screaming, only no sound seems to be coming out.

Cassandra looks up at him, eyes wide and full of fear. Allie's only ever seen her sister scared twice, once right before surgery when she was eleven and Allie was ten, and once when they were seven and eight, when Allie fell out of a tree and broke her arm. Cassandra stares down fear with a steely exterior and pushes past anyone in her way.

She tries to reason with Dewey, "What are you do-"

Three shots, Cassandra first then her. She finally screams.

* * *

The sunlight is too bright through her half closed blinds. Allie sits up with a start. The rules and reasoning of her world are becoming just a little clearer. Cassandra's death is why she's here, she's certain of that.

She makes a plan to keep Cassandra alive, one that involves slipping into a car at a different exit. It's messy and full of loose ends, but what's she got to lose?

(Cassandra sees a dog out front and walks over to it. Allie yells at her to come back. Dewey shoots. Allie screams.)

* * *

She tries to tell Will in the morning, stopping him as he goes downstairs.

"I think I'm going crazy."

He laughs at her. "Good morning to you too." He leaves off the part about going over to Kelly's. She almost grins.

"I think I'm stuck repeating the same day over and over and maybe I'm just losing it, maybe I've been drugged or maybe this is the afterlife or-"

Will's laugh interrupts her, the uncertain one that he uses when he feels uncomfortable. She pales. "Are you feeling okay Allie?" he asks. "Or is this some joke, cause you're really not making any sense."

She thinks about continuing, about going on and on about how she'll go crazy if she has to live through this day forever, if she has to live through prom night forever. She can tell, though, that he wants to get out of there, that he thinks she's already lost it (maybe she has).

So she forces a smile and a laugh. "Just messing with you," she says, watching the relief seep through is features. "I was just thinking about _Groundhog Day_, you know, that movie with Bill Murray. I wonder if anyone has a copy of it."

He smiles back, all easy and undeniably Will. "Probably."

* * *

She knows for a fact that her next door neighbors had guns scattered around there house, in drawers and under beds, an illegal assault rifle in a safe in the basement. She'd gone shooting with them and their grandchildren once, on one of those days that her parents spent in the hospital with Cassandra. She actually spent a lot of time over there, weekends and evenings afterschool, even a Thanksgiving once.

That's her plan now, to threaten Dewey, to say _fuck off_ and maybe even laugh a little when he runs away. It involves a slightly larger bag that she keeps close to her throughout the night, and very little dancing.

It's boring (but so is listening to the same songs over and over. She wonders how many nights it'll take for her to know them all by heart).

Harry's at a table alone, staring down at one of those nametags when she makes her way over. It's earlier than when she usually talks to him, but she's been craving one of those sweet drinks he makes her, the one he says tastes better than straight whiskey.

"You came," she says, inviting herself to sit down beside him. Sometimes words from the original day slip out, almost like they were meant to be said no matter what.

"So did you." He's smiling at her with that Bingham smile, the one that screams 'I've got nothing to lose'. She wonders if she smiles like that now too.

"You know how to make any drinks?" she asks, working her way towards the subject quickly. "Cause I've been wanting something sweet, but am absolute shit at mixing stuff."

He has this sort of glassy look in his eyes, like he's not entirely there. It reminds her of when she used to take anxiety medicine right at the peak of Cassandra's heart issues, how she'd be there technically, but really she'd be floating somewhere else, staring down with a sort of disconnectedness.

"Yeah," he says finally. "I can make you a drink."

They stand up at the same time. She leaves her bag at the table, and drinks the sweet thing he mixes so fast that he makes her another right after with a laugh.

"You surprise me sometimes, Pressman."

She smiles, lets herself be fuzzy, lets herself move closer to him than is safe. "Yeah?"

He nods, but there's a bit of sadness pulled into his expression. She feels the inexplicable need to be sad too. "Yeah."

He leaves after that, saluting her with a half smile. She waves goodbye and sips the drink slowly (it's different than before, a little bitter, a little less bright), wondering how she ever let herself get trapped in a world like this.

* * *

Her clock flashes 12:01 AM in a blue neon light. She thinks with some sad sort of hope that she made it, that she'd cracked the code and escaped the loop. At 2:29, while she alternates her glance between a book (_The Goldfinch_) and the clock, she blinks and she's suddenly just waking up, the light streaming in through half open blinds to shine directly in her eyes.

She hates this world.

* * *

The next night, Dewey doesn't show up.

She sneaks outside, gun in hand, ready to scare him off like she'd done previously, but he wasn't there.

She walks with Cassandra home ready for a shot in the back that never comes.

She blinks at 2:29, and spends the next day in bed, faking an illness and ignoring prom. She misses the sweet drink Harry makes and his stupid bowtie. He hadn't been there last night either.

She wonders how much little decisions she makes affect others, what she'd done or said (or didn't do or say) had caused Harry not to show up.

She doesn't wonder too long, though. It'll drive her crazy if she thinks too much about it.

* * *

Allie develops a sort of routine. She lays out a suit jacket for Will from her Dad's closet. It forces him to stay a little longer, help her with dishes and provide light conversation, but he still leaves after Cassandra makes pancakes (chocolate chip; no one likes blueberry but her). She sets up prom with Gwen and Grizz, throws out the cake when she first gets there and smiles at Grizz's space puns. When she's in a good mood, she'll even get ready with Cassandra, and Bean. Every night, she'll stay late and help Cassandra clean up. Dewey doesn't show up again, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

There's a sort of monotony that she's getting used to.

* * *

She's staring at Kelly's dress, this pink one that grazes the floor and billows around her whenever she twirls, when Campbell offers her drugs for the first time.

"You just seem a little down cuz," Campbell says with a smirk, holding out a pill to her. "It'll numb the pain."

She's got nothing to lose, so she takes it with a smile (a Bingham smile).

That becomes part of her routine too, a little white pill in the middle of the night, and sweeping waves that keep her above everything.

* * *

She loses track of how many days she's been stuck, months maybe at this point. It all blends together, fuzzy memories of the same day over and over.

Her routine falls apart slowly. First it's her getting up late, not setting out a jacket for Will and leaving the dishes in the sink. Then it's doing the bare minimum to set up before leaving for Campbell's. He'll slip her a pill if she asks nicely enough, if she makes a show of being done with it all. She'll get ready for prom late, slipping on the dress with the zipper that leaves indentations in her skin, and spend the night next to the bar drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.

It doesn't take long for her to start not even showing up to prom, for her to put on the dress and walk in the opposite direction. Cassandra doesn't even fucking need her as some psuedo savior; Dewey hasn't shown up since the start, there's no threat anymore, no reason for Allie to be trapped. What she thought her purpose was in this crazy situation is gone now.

So she walks, far away, towards the edge of town. She'll walk until she blinks and wakes up, and then the next night she'll start over. It's strange how much of the town she'd never seen before, how much had been hidden from her view by gates and distance.

Allie's walking to the overpass, the one with the bridge that she'd gone to their first real day there, when she sees him, Harry Bingham, driving his car fast over the edge.

She stops moving, staring with wide eyes straight ahead. This doesn't make any fucking sense, Harry killing himself. He's not real and he doesn't make real decisions because she's alone in this. And then it hits her all at once. _She isn't alone._

Harry had stopped showing up to prom. He'd made that choice all on his own. He'd changed.

She blinks and wakes up again, light streaming in through half open blinds. She jumps up, puts on a pair of slippers near her door and runs out. She needs to see him, to talk to him.

* * *

"You killed yourself yesterday," she says from his doorway. The room is dark, but neater than the rest of his house, the exact same as that one night that she'd gone home with him.

He sits up in his bed, staring at her with unbelieving eyes. "How do you remember that?" he asks slowly. He looks at her like he's in some sort of dream. She can't tell if it's a good dream or a bad one.

Allie approaches him slowly, feeling a little like she's in a dream too. "I've been stuck in this day for a month, at least- maybe more, probably more. And yesterday, I saw you drive off the overpass before I woke up to all of this again."

"Shit."

She starts to cry, these big huge tears that won't stop steaming down her cheeks, because _she's not alone_. Harry doesn't move, he just stares at her carefully like she isn't real.

"What do you think happened?" he asks after a moment. She's sitting on the corner of his bed now, and he moves slowly to settle in next to her. "Why do you think we're here?"

She takes a deep breath in. "We're going crazy, probably. Or it's something about this new world. There's probably something in the air and this is all just in our heads."

He nods like her words make sense. Nothing makes sense anymore. "It resets at 2:30," Harry tells her. "Or whenever you die or pass out, and I don't think anyone else is trapped with us." He goes back to staring at her. "I thought it might be you at the start, when you danced with me, but then you went back to doing the same shit over and over just like everyone else." She remembers faintly him being less fuzzy around the edges, his sad smile as he told her she surprised him sometimes.

"Cassandra died those first few times," Allie says all at once. She forgot how amazing it is to talk to someone else, to actually talk to someone else, a full conversation that wouldn't be the same the next day, a conversation that she wouldn't have to carry. "Dewey, this weird skinny kid, killed her. He shoots her after prom. I don't know why, though. I thought it was the reason why I was stuck in this stupid loop, but then it stopped."

"Dewey?" Harry repeats slowly.

She nods. "I can point him out to you." She thinks of Dewey and his reddish hair and sharp face. She thinks of the look in his eyes when he shoots her sister, and the look in his eyes when he turns the gun on her. She thinks of that time she followed him around for a day, his careful actions and small group of friends. Yet, she still doesn't really know much about him, she just knows that he kills

"But she stopped dying?"

"Yeah, and now I have no fucking clue why we're stuck."

They're quiet for a moment. His bedroom is dark, blinds drawn and the door only half open, but she can see people moving around them, people waking up and talking. It's loud at his house. She remembers him telling her about how there's never any coffee.

"I think I know why Dewey kills Cassandra," Harry says carefully. He's looking down at his hands, refusing to look up at her no matter how much she wills him to do so. He looks nervous all of the sudden, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. "I said some stuff, those first few days."

Allie's eyes widen. "What kind of stuff, Harry?" she asks, suddenly worried. He's still not looking up at her, still nervous. Only now she's nervous too.

"I said I wished Cassandra was dead."

It hits her all at once that Harry Bingham is decidedly not the person that she'd want to be trapped with, that there's a reason Cassandra hates him, a reason why she'd never talked to him before all of this shit happened. There's a reason why in the long run they wouldn't work, a reason why she'd wanted to stay away.

He'd wanted her sister _dead_. He'd said those words, and someone had listened. In some alternate universe, that's how it would've went down, her sister dead because of something stupid Harry had said.

He looks up at her. "I didn't mean it, not really. I was just-"

"But you said." She's standing up now. He stands up with her. "You said it, and you meant it enough to say it again and again and again." Allie's shaking, stepping away from him like he's diseased or something. She wonders how her life always seems to fall apart so quickly.

"I didn't mean it," he repeats. She wishes she could believe him. Everything would be so much easier if she could believe him.

"Fuck you."

* * *

It's hard to return to her routine.

There's no Dewey to worry about now, no purpose to anything she does. The next day it'll all be gone anyway, what's the point in even going out. She tries to get to know people, Becca, and Elle, and Gordie. She learns that Elle did ballet before all of this, that she dreamed of dancing in New York. She sees some of the photos and videos that Becca's taken, and listens to Gordie's theories on where they are.

It fills her days, but when she wakes up with the sun streaming in through half open blinds, they don't remember anything she tells them.

She tells Elle about how she took dance classes until Cassandra got really sick. She tells Becca about the fancy cameras her mom would buy but never use. She tells Gordie about a telescope at her grandparents house that she'd spend hours staring through. She tells them about herself and they never remember any of it.

It messes her up, the loneliness of her situation, eats away at her slowly. Some days she won't even get up, others spent going through Cassandra's meds for something that could numb her just a little.

She wonders what Harry's doing. She's never seen him out, not since those first few days, not since he drove over the edge of the overpass. She pictures him laying in bed all day, him driving around at night, and him lying in his pool. It scares her that he's the only one that can actually get to know her in this world, that he's it. _This could be hell._

* * *

"Why'd you say it?" she asks from his doorway, arms crossed, frown on her face.

"My mom was having sex with Kelly's dad. Kelly found out and told me, and then broke up with me. I was upset- am upset, I guess. Blaming Cassandra for everything was easy." He sounds tired. She's tired too.

She lets there be a silence, lets herself think about his words. "Cambell has drugs," she says finally. "Don't know if you know that already, but if you ask nicely enough, really lay it on thick, he'll give you some. I always bring him food."

"I'm sorry Allie."

She stares at him, at his figure in a shadowed room. "I think I'm going crazy."

"Me too."

Mickey walks in a second later to tell him that the upstairs toilet is clogged. Harry groans; Allie smiles.

* * *

A list of things that Allie learns about Harry within the first two days of them talking:

He takes his coffee black. She invites him over to her house, mentioning a full pot of coffee that'll go to waste. He asks her why she keeps making it. She doesn't have an answer.

He owns _Groundhog Day_. They refuse to watch it, but he owns it.

He really likes honey dijon potato chips. He has two bags hidden under his bed. She laughs out loud when she sees them.

He has a hard time falling asleep at night, and an equally hard time waking up in the morning. She walks into his room on the morning of the second day and throws open all the curtains. He yells so loudly that Mickey thinks Harry's in danger.

He likes to take pictures of things. "It doesn't make much sense now, though," he tells her. "Since the pictures are always gone when I wake up." Allie brings him her polaroid camera and a collection of film gathered from Cassandra's room (she hoards the stuff, always too scared to take pictures).

He has all six Taylor Swift albums downloaded. He tells her that it's because of his sister, but she doesn't really believe him.

He smiles a lot, way too much. He frowns a lot too, though, so it all kind of evens out.

* * *

He becomes the first person she sees in the mornings. She walks over to his house, slipping out the door as soon as she wakes up, leaving a short note about some time alone on the counter along with a pot of coffee. She brings Harry a thermos of the stuff, tucking it in the crook of her arm like a football as she walks. If she doesn't think too much about it, she can almost pretend this is all just some summer routine she has down rather than the true reality of her situation.

Harry offers to drive her after the third morning of her showing up. He pours the coffee into two cups and pulls cream out of the fridge while she stirs into her coffee spoonfuls of sugar.

"It's not even a ten minute walk," she says.

"Well it's only a two minute drive then," he argues. "The faster you get here, the sooner I get my coffee."

She rolls her eyes at him. They're both ignoring the obvious solution, him coming over to her house. She can picture the look on Cassandra's face while Harry eats blueberry pancakes and drinks black coffee; she bets he can too.

"At least let me take you for a drive," he says. "It's the only thing I've really done since we got here."

She accepts his offer with a small smile and a sip of her drink. He smiles back, a Bingham smile, and she wonders if there's any way to lose in this world.

* * *

Harry has a fast car. He has multiple fast cars, actually.

Cassandra's the type of person who kept all the windows rolled up and the radio turned down low when she drives. Harry's the opposite. He drives fast with the top down; a little recklessly (it doesn't matter if they die; they'll just wake up and it'll all start again) and with a sort of ease, and Allie loves it.

He knows some roads so well that he can drive them with his eyes closed. He'll turn away from the road, moving the wheel ever so slightly on turns.

"How many times have you driven here?" she asks and he shrugs. She understands. She knows all the right words to say to people, how to zone out just enough. She's lived countless days on autopilot.

He lets her drive around the outskirts of town, the places where you can see the forest peaking out around the edges. It still scares her, the brand new world that surrounds them now. She drives slower than he does, turning carefully, and looking both ways before passing through intersections. He laughs at her, and they both pretend that they're anywhere but where they are. They pretend that they're in some other world, some better world, where the day doesn't repeat and they're not stuck in their hometown. (In her head they go to her favorite bakery in the next town over. She gets a chocolate croissant, and he eats so much of it that she has to buy a second.)

It's her idea to actually look inside the houses. They're passing by a neighbor's house, an older couple who had two cats who Allie would house sit for every summer when they went to visit their grandkids. She wonders if someone actually went through all the houses for supplies, or if they've just been abandoned, relics of a life they once had.

It becomes a game of theirs, seeing who can find the best stuff. Is it creepy going through other people's things- yes, but they're stuck and the family who lived next door to Harry also had every single Marvel movie, so they don't think about the creepy part all that much.

They watch Marvel movies while everyone's at prom. Cassandra doesn't die at the end of the night; Allie still wakes up to sunlight streaming through her blinds and a sink full of dishes. (But now there's Harry too, the guy who makes them popcorn while she's walking over, and always leaves her the blue sour patch kids. He's the one thing that's changing, and she's getting used to that.)

* * *

She ends up falling asleep at Harry's house most nights. It's not jarring anymore, waking up someplace different than where she fell asleep, just a little off putting (but everything here's a little off putting). He's quick to wrap an arm around her when they lay down, quick to scoot closer until their shoulders touch while watching TV or reading (they read together, trade books and have long winded discussions). She likes it, weirdly; she likes the reminder that he's real, that his actions aren't always dictated by her. She likes his blue plaid comforter, and the lamps on his bedside tables, and the rug by his desk. She likes his bookshelf, and the Disney shows he has recorded on his DVR, and him, Harry Bingham, the _real, living_ person beneath all of that.

* * *

He kisses her on his bed while they're watching episodes of _Friends_. It's long and slow and sweet, and for a second, she doesn't feel trapped.

"What was that?" she asks softly as they pull apart, foreheads resting and _Friends_ playing in the background. Ross is saying something stupid, but she can barely hear it.

"I think I like you, Pressman."

She smiles at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

She closes the distance between them again and feels his smile against her lips. The next morning, she'll wake up in a place not where she fell asleep. It won't scare her; she'll go back to him.

* * *

He has his bad days, days with Campbell's drugs, and short drives off edges, days spent entirely in bed next to her. She has her bad days too, days where she doesn't feel up to even getting out of bed, much less making the walk out to his house, or doing anything really. She'll text him _tomorrow_ on those days and he'll text back _ok_ and they won't see one another.

Only today is different.

She hears the doorbell ring at 8:30. She doesn't worry much about it; Will's about to leave, he can get it. Faintly, she can hear arguing downstairs. It's Will and someone else, but it's quiet. Then she can hear footsteps up the stairs.

"Hey." It's him, Harry. He's standing in her doorway wrapped in that stupid robe he wears in the morning. Her eyes widen when she sees him, and she sits up a little in bed, wrapping the blanket tight around her. The blinds are still wide open, and the sun is right in her eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

He shrugs. "Thought it was unfair that you always have to come to my place. It's really quiet here, by the way."

She smiles at him softly, scooting over slightly in bed. "Close the blinds and come sleep next to me? I could probably use the company."

"Okay."

(Cassandra finds them at 9:30. She doesn't say anything and leaves some pancakes in the oven. Allie smiles so wide it hurts, and Harry comes to her house the next day.)

* * *

Her dad has _Running Wild with Bear Grylls_ recorded on the DVR downstairs. That's what inspires Allie to force Harry into hiking boots (he thinks that those loafers he likes to wear would work outdoors. She calls him stupid), and explore the area around them a little.

"My dad wanted me to be a Boy Scout. I sprained my ankle the first day and quit," he tells her, lacing up the hiking boots.

She rolls her eyes. "Good thing your sprained ankles only last a day here."

It's a bit like when she used to explore the town on foot, going in different directions until she hit the woods, only now it's just this expanse of green forest that _they're_ walking through. Sometimes, they'll borrow Jason's jeep and drive it until it can't go any farther. They find an grove of apple trees one day, and spend it picking as many as they can. They haven't had fresh fruit in what feels like forever. Some other day, they find a river, and spend over a week walking along it, staring at the fish and trying to figure out where it led too. Allie imagines the ocean, long coastlines speckled with rocks and covered in sand. She can almost taste the saltwater. It makes her giddy.

"We could survive here," she says, turning towards him. "Even when the food runs out. There's fish in the river, and all of those apple trees. We could actually make it."

He's looking down at the ground, kicking a rock as they walk. It bounces into the river. "If we ever make it out of this."

She's not sure how long they've been stuck in the loop. It's been months, over six, maybe. She can't think of any lesson they haven't learned, any trick they haven't tried. They've stayed up all night, they've lived day just as it happened originally (that first loop, it was exactly the same), they've done their best to do everything right. They're stuck.

"We'll get out of this," she says, but she doesn't believe her own words.

"Okay." He doesn't sound like he believes her either.

* * *

There's a piece of land just an hour outside of town that'd be perfect for farming. There's animals and a pond with fish, and she can just see it, a little settlement with a farmhouse and fresh produce. She'd never realised what a luxury fresh food was until everything she ate started coming from a can.

There's a future just waiting for them; she can see it. It's bright and loud and amazing, and she wants it; she wants it so bad it hurts.

* * *

A list of things they do to fill the time (in no particular order):

Sleep. They sleep a lot, sometimes entire days. It beats staring at the clock while waiting for everything to repeat. Harry likes to keep an arm wrapped around Allie. When he starts doing that, it takes her two weeks to get used to waking up without him next to her. She hates it. The loop repeats, and she repeats too.

Sex. The first time is in his room while everyone's at prom. It's better, much better, than that very first time after Fugitive. Mickey walks in on them once to tell Harry that the upstairs toilet is clogged. Allie turns bright red and Harry laughs.

Read. They spend entire days at the library, hidden in corners with old books. Harry makes a point to read the "classics" (Allie calls him a snob and he throws _Jane Eyre_ at her), and she reads the books that she remembered liking as a kid, books like _Harry Potter_ and _Percy Jackson_.

Watch movies. If they look hard enough, they can just about find whatever movie they want to see (except for _Avatar_ for some reason. They spend two days searching for that one before giving up). They alternate film suggestions, making fun of one another for whatever they chose. Allie calls Harry a wannabe film critic, and he forces her to watch _Pulp Fiction_ three times.

Play Monopoly. Allie sucks at it, but she also has this feeling that Harry's cheating. He tells her that he isn't, but she swears she sees him slip extra hundreds into his money whenever she returns from the bathroom. ("Half off rent cause you love me." "Nope.")

Clean. Sometimes, they'll spend entire days cleaning his house. It's useless, they'll just wake up and it'll all be a mess again, but it's comforting to clean. She likes to imagine that there's an alternate universe where they do wake up in a new day, where the house remains spotless and the sun doesn't rise into her eyes. It's indulgent, but she can't help herself.

Talk. They talk a lot about just pretty much anything. Harry goes on these long rambling rants on his family, on his dad's death, and his mom's indifference. He tells her all about Sarah, the girl with the pale pink room who'd force him to sing _Let It Go_. And he tells her about his anxiety, and the frequent panic attacks that occured during their first few days there. She tells him about Cassandra, about the heart disease, and the constant shadow. She mentions not being able to sleep at night, and days spent at her neighbor's house waiting for her parents to come home from the hospital. They talk about Will and Kelly, about first kisses, and dates, and awkward hand holding. Allie's not sure she's ever felt so close to a person before (he knows her favorite movie, and color, and song. He knows that she wanted to go to NYU, and that had no idea what her future looked like. She knows that he's afraid of heights, that he hates driving slow, and was going to go into law in the future because that was what his mom had done. She learns that he knows how to braid hair because of his sister, and that he always cries at the end of _Marley and Me_. She knows him, and he knows her; and imagining a world where all of this didn't happen is getting harder and harder).

Dance. It starts with her playing the Taylor Swift while they clean. He takes her hands and she laughs so hard it hurts, and that's that. They play pop music from the early 2010's and dance in his room instead of going to prom. They both find it much more enjoyable.

* * *

It's his idea to go to prom. He hasn't been back since those first few days. Sometimes they'll help set up for prom, driving decorations back and forth in one of his cars, but they never stay for the actual dance, never dress up (she hasn't put on that dress with the stupid zipper in forever), never dance surrounded by their peers.

"Just once," he says. He's playing with her hair, braiding it away from her face.

"Okay."

They get ready at her house. Harry's almost warmed up to Cassandra (he's a little warm on the outside, but kind of cold on the inside, like when you don't reheat leftovers right), but she's just the same as the start.

"Is he Mr. UTI?" she asks when Harry's out of the room.

Allie rolls her eyes. "So what if he is?"

"At least he's taking you to prom."

He gets her a corsage. It keeps getting caught in her hair, though (she has a habit of pushing her hair behind her ear), so she takes it off just as they arrive. He wears the same tux with the same stupid bow tie as the very first time. The songs are the same, too, the same people doing the same things.

They take pictures in the photo booth, Harry's arm wrapped around her tight and a funny shaped pair of sunglasses on her face. She swears she sees Will glance over at them, and can't help but laugh. They dance to _Just Like Heaven_, and Harry teaches her to make that sweet drink while _I Melt With You_ plays. It's a bit like the perfect night, everything she'd ever really wanted her prom experience to be like at home (plus Harry).

"Glad I forced you to come?" he asks her while they slow dance.

She smiles at him, bright and happy. "Yeah, I am. I'm having fun. It's better when you're here." It's been nearly a year. She's not jealous of Kelly anymore. She's not crushing on Will, or annoyed with Cassandra. She's a new person, someone entirely different who's grown and changed. And Harry's grown too, less arrogant, and stubborn, and lazy. He gets out of bed in the morning. He talks to Cassandra. He cooks sometimes. She can't imagine this not happening now, she can't imagine not being stuck.

* * *

He drives them home, dropping Cassandra off at the Pressman residence, and taking Allie with him. They have just over an hour before the loop is set to reset. They spend it watching _Groundhog Day_ in bed because they still haven't seen the film.

"At least I'm stuck with you," she says to Harry, and he leans his head on her shoulder.

"I'm glad it's you too, Pressman."

* * *

Later, in bed, he asks her if she thinks she would've gotten this close with whoever she was trapped with.

"No, not this close. We'd be close, obviously, but it'd be different if it wasn't you."

He playing with her hair. She leans into him a little. "You know I love you, right?" he asks quietly and she nods.

"Yeah. I love you too."

She doesn't think about any other worlds with different people. She thinks of them, Allie Pressman and Harry Bingham, two people so undeniably stuck, who fell in love anyways. And then she falls asleep with him beside her, his plaid comforter surrounding her, and the promise of another day just like the last.

* * *

There's no light shining in her eyes, no half open blinds, or clock reading 7:30. There is, however, Harry's arm wrapped tight against her, blue plaid and drawn blinds, and finally something new.

She thinks she's dreaming. This'd be a horrible dream, a tease of a life she wishes she could live. Only, when she shakes Harry, he's there, _he's real_, laying beside her with bed head and a faint smile.

"Allie?"

She's grinning now, tearing up a little, afraid to celebrate too soon, but not wanting to believe that this is anything but what she wants it to be. "Harry, we made it." She's standing up, and he's standing up too. The clock reads 9 o'clock. She's smiling so wide it hurts.

"Fuck." He's grinning too, pulling her close and laughing into her hair. She's never felt so happy, never felt like she's just beat the world.

"It's a new day," she says, and he nods.

"It's a new day."

* * *

Cassandra's in the kitchen at home, Will's on the couch, Gordie's at the counter. Allie cries when she sees them.

"Are you okay?" It's Cassandra, rushing towards her. She shoots a glare at Harry who's standing in the doorway. He looks a little like crying too.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just happy to see you guys." Because they're real, they live and breathe and make their own decisions. They remember the day before; she's not used to that. She's not used to consequences and limits. She almost excited to get used to them again. They all sit around and eat breakfast, Allie and Harry pressed close together. Will makes a face at them, and Cassandra forces a smile; Allie's never been happier.

Harry takes her driving, back to that road that he could drive with his eyes closed. Some of the cars are parked differently. They both sit in the front of his black maserati and cry. _It's a new fucking day._

Later, she'll fall asleep wrapped up in Harry and wake up still next to him. Cassandra will lead, they'll find the land, and everything will be a little easier. They'll see tomorrow again, and again, and again. Everything will change, and she can't wait.

* * *

_I'll stop the world and melt with you (Let's stop the world) _

_You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time (Let's stop the _

_world) _

_There's nothing you and I won't do (Let's stop the world) _

_I'll stop the world and melt with you (Let's stop the world)_


End file.
